. >> reporter: eben alexander had been stricken with an extremely rare and virulent e. coli meningitis infection that was ravaging his brain, plunging him into a coma. >> i mean, i was trying to die. >> reporter: in fact, doctors gave him almost no chance to live and told his family if he did survive, he'd be brain damaged for the rest of his life. >> his eyes were just off and cocked just like no one was there. >> reporter: eben believes holly is right. he wasn't there. did you go to heaven? >> yes. in every sense of the word, that's what my -- what my experience showed me. >> reporter: his first recollection, he says, was being a speck of pure awareness in a dark and murky underworld. >> and then i was rescued by this beautiful spinning white light that had a melody, indescribably beautiful melody with it that opened up into a bright valley, just an incredible, rich, ultra-real world of indescribable complexity. >> reporter: god was there, he says, and he encountered him through an orb of brilliant light. he soared on the wing of a butterfly with a beautiful young wom